In 2007, two of those authors said there are savings from combining smaller districts, but they also offered a warning:

We find economies of size in operating spending: all else equal, doubling enrollment cuts operating costs per pupil by 61.7 percent for a 300-pupil district and by 49.6 percent for a 1,500-pupil district. Consolidation also involves large adjustment costs, however. These adjustment costs, which are particularly large for capital spending, lower net cost savings to 31.5 percent and 14.4 percent for a 300-pupil and a 1,500-pupil district, respectively. Overall, consolidation makes fiscal sense, particularly for very small districts, but states should avoid subsidizing unwarranted capital projects.

More recently, Standard and Poors evaluated school districts in Pennsylvania, said that diseconomies of scale kick in at about 3,000 students in a district.

It concluded that Pennsylvania seek to consolidate districts so that they had an enrollment of about 2,500 to 3,000 students. Granted, Pennsylvania is not Kansas, but I suspect a similar logic is at work in Kansas. It is very similar to an analysis of district spending in Michigan.

Note, however, that an “adequacy” study of Wisconsin, which also found a u-shaped curve, put the optimal district size at close to 6,000 students. (Yes, I appreciate the irony of quoting a literature that I have had serious objections to.)

I’ll have more on this subject as time allows. Consolidation will certainly be an ongoing concern of Kansas legislators.